The Charles David Keeling Apartments at UCSD were honored for sustainable design at the San Diego American Society of Landscape Architects’ awards ceremony. Courtesy image

Two La Jolla properties win architecture awards

Two La Jolla-area sites were recently honored with design awards from the San Diego American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) for outstanding projects that showcase the best in landscape architecture and environmental planning and ultimately promote an enhanced quality of life in San Diego County.

The project also simultaneously incorporates functional infrastructure elements, such as a vegetated rooftop and a stormwater conveyance system that captures, infiltrates and slowly releases water from roofs and hardscaped areas through a system of engineered basins and weirs that release into a native arroyo bioswale.

“This is the best project on campus and makes great progress toward the campus goal of being completely self-sustaining,” said ASLA juror Joyce Cutler Shaw.

Torrey Pines City Park — a 57-acre coastal bluff established as a park in 1899 — also received ASLA’s Merit Award for planning and analysis thanks to landscape architect WRT Design’s successful balance of coastal access for flight operations and public use, cultural-resource preservation, slowing of erosion that created safety issues on the bluff, and management of stormwater runoff from the adjacent UCSD property.

ASLA jurors recognized the comprehensive elements of the landscape and drainage plan to correct issues with storm-water runoff. WRT proposed a gap-graded material comprised of rock, clay loam and soil aggregating polymer, lithwick, for planting areas, which will detain the runoff and slowly disperse it into native vegetation.

La Jolla company shows its green side

Local pharmaceutical research company Takeda is giving back what it has taken from the environment by planting 2,000 trees in local forests throughout San Diego. In partnership with San Diego River Park Foundation and the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy, Takeda’s employees, family and friends will don garden gloves and wield shovels to plant 1,000 native trees at both the Peutz Creek Preserve in Alpine and Del Dios Gorge in Del Mar to revegetate each location’s natural habitat.

“Our new goal is to plant more trees each year than we use,” said Keith Wilson, president and chief scientific officer of Takeda California. “It helps people to remember to conserve our precious resources, and we are thrilled to partner with the San Diego River Park Foundation and the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy to make such a positive environmental difference in San Diego.”